Page 65 of The Rut in the Road

Raj’s face flickered through an expression that I’d come to recognize as him trying to think something through that he found either confusing or, as was more likely the case in thisinstance, disturbing. “Huh,” was what he said. “Do you—” He stopped, not finishing the question.

“Do I what?” I asked.

His gaze was focused down on the onions as he stirred them in the pot, then added several spoons-full of garlic from a jar. He’d told me once that fresh was better, but while he was happy to chop onions, mincing garlic was annoyingly tedious and he was too lazy most of the time. “Well,” he said, and he was drawing out the words, thinking as he spoke. “Life-casting is supposed to give life, or restore it, right?”

“That’s what Mason said,” I replied. I certainly didn’t know very much about it, although Mason had promised to bring me some books.

“Do you think you’re… fixing him?” he asked.

I looked down at Victor, a little alarmed at the idea that his resurrection might be a long-term process that would restore him to actual life. What would it mean if I were? Resurrecting something and actually restoring it to full life wasn’t something you wanted to do by accident.

But I’d raised Victor by accident—and I was absolutely terrified that I might do it again. And if Victor was… was healing the right word? If his physical body was somehow being restored…

I shuddered.

“Why would that be a bad thing?” Raj asked, reading my response correctly despite the fact that I hadn’t said a word.

“Because it would mean that I have even less control over my magic than I thought,” I answered, not taking my eyes off Victor, who was now grooming his dilapidated tail. “Accidentally resurrecting a rat is bad enough,” I continued. “But if I’m somehow doing somethingelseto him…” I shuddered again.

“Wouldn’t that just mean you’re stronger than you thought?” Raj asked, adding peppers to the onions and garlic.

I made a small noise in the back of my throat, and Victor looked up at me. “It would mean that I’m not controlling my magic,” I whispered. “And that’s dangerous.”

Raj was quiet for a few moments, stirring. Then he added a package of ground beef, the fat sizzling as it hit the pan.

Victor sniffed at the air again, then looked up at me with what seemed to be an imploring expression on his tiny little rat face.

“Is life casting particularly dangerous?” Raj asked me when I got up and took a spoon, scooping out a tiny piece of the meat. “That’s not cooked.”

“Victor wants it,” I told him.

He glanced over at the rat, who was still watching me with beady black eyes that I couldn’t remember whether they’d been more cloudy two days ago or not. “Victor… wants it?” Raj repeated.

I looked helplessly at him with absolutely no idea how to explain to him how I knew that.

“I mean, go ahead,” Raj told me, nodding at the undead rat.

I took the spoon over, blowing on it a couple times so that it wouldn’t burn him—why, I don’t know, since as far as I knew he didn’t have nerve endings left in his paws, but I guess he could still smell, so maybe he did. I held it out, and Victor came right up to it, then bent and took the small piece of ground beef in his mouth. He backed up a few paces, then sat back and gripped it with both paws, chewing on it.

“So he eats now?” Raj asked.

“I guess so,” was all I could think to say, but worry was a ball of dread in my stomach. If I’d done this to Victor, what else might I do without knowing it? What worse would I do?

11

It was weird,thinking about how his uncle had been wrong about Rayn. Weird that Rayn was like the opposite of what they’d thought he was.

Not bad. Just… really weird.

I pushedJackson’s thoughts out of my mind, carrying the pencil he’d apparently been playing with the few steps to the cup on the coffee table in the middle of the lobby. I couldn’t say that I disagreed with Jackson’s feelings—it was really weird to think that I’d spent most of my life believing I was a death witch, and yet it seemed like Mason was right, and I wasn’t a death witch after all, but a life caster.

The spell he’d talked me through—giving energy to someone else—had felt strange, but somehowsimple, even though it was one I’d never performed before. I’d taken Mason’s big green hand, closed my eyes, and tried to find the faint glimmer that was his life magic.

I’d been honestly terrified—worried that I’d somehow hurt him, drain his energy, something. But Mason had assured me that if he couldn’t manage to defend himself, Jackson wouldundoubtedly be able to stop me from doing irreparable damage, if it came to that. Not that he thought it would.

He’d probably been right—I was still fairly certain that Mason was stronger than me, and he was definitely far, far more practiced. If someone was going to lose in a magical conflict, it wasn’t going to be him.

So I’d followed Mason’s coaching, letting my careful protective walls down enough to feel the hum of Mason’s magic, a slight edge of coolness running through the warmth that was his magic. I felt it, and I thought about warming it, the soft heat of a candle-flame causing wax to puddle and melt.